<p>Now the generals are telling him that increasing troops won’t change a thing. They want clear, measurable goals. The military commanders on the ground, from Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, to his generals in Iraq, have said flatly that more American troops aren’t the answer and aren’t wanted. They are wondering how they are going to extend combat tours of soldiers and Marines who are nearing an end to their second or third year. They wonder where they are going to pull 30,000 troops from. They want an Iraqi political solution to the problem.</p>
<p>But Bush to generals: “Heehee, but, I’m the decider.” While Bush scrambles to cover his nakedness, and his administration tries to cover up his cluelessness with a phony “listening tour,” Cheney plots a “victory.” Note creepy Cheney leering at every stop in the listening tour. He has become a truly desperate man.</p>
It sounds to me like Bush is proceeding in a very measured way – seeking input from experts and then making a decision based on those recommendations.</p>
<p>According to a Washington Post article on Thursday “Joint Chiefs Advise Change in War Strategy” by Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff George Casey is supporting a plan that would remove US combat troops from Iraqi cities and place greater reliance on American military “advisors” building up the Iraqi military. </p>
<p>Of course the bottom line is 12% of Americans think Bush is handling the war well.</p>
<p>How would like to be the family of a service member in Iraq while Bush spends the holidays “deciding?”</p>
<p>This is almost exactly what Seymour Hirsch said would happen in The New Yorker about a month ago. Since the summer, Rumsfeld, Cheyney, et al. have known that (1) if the Democrats were seen as having “won” the election, Rumsfeld would have to go and there would have to be a policy change, and (2) the bipartisan Baker Commission was essentially going to recommend staged abandonment of Iraq and diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria, two things that are anathema to them. So there has been a furious effort to come up with some different policy change and to legitimize it as a counter to the obvious authority of the Baker Commission. And of course, prerequisite # 1 for selling a policy that is essentially exactly what the Baker Commission rejected would have to be making it politically acceptable to Republican critics of the war effort to date (a group that is now practically indistinguishable from “Republicans”). Hence the current dance.</p>
<p>The Bush Administration has never, ever listened to “the commanders in the field” except when it suited their purposes, and it has not hesitated to replace commanders who said inconvenient things when asked. I’m not certain it should, exactly. Deciding whether to occupy Iraq, for how long, what the goals are, what the metrics for success are, and what cost is acceptible for achieving those goals – those are essentially political decisions that should be made in Washington by civilian leadership. The field commanders’ responsibility is to carry out those decisions tactically as best they can, and to make certain the leadership is informed about the tactical consequences and requirements of their decisions.</p>
<p>Three different statements : (1) “If you want to achieve X, we can’t do it without 100,000 more troops.” (2) “X is an achievable goal, and is preferable to Y.” (3) “If we have 100,000 more troops, etc., we can achieve X in t timeperiod.” My sense is that the military is making statement (1) in response to specific requests from the Administration, and the Administration is putting on a whole fireworks show to distract people from the fact that the Baker Commission thoroughly rejected statements (2) and (3).</p>
<p>I don’t get your point, weenie. Bush is listening to a variety of advisors, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I deliberately used the LA Times, not the National Review, as a source. The LA times is hardly a conservative source of info. Seymour Hersh is a far-left source at best, derided by both sides of the political spectrum.
<p>I think that whatever Bush does doesn’t matter to people on the left. He could cure cancer, and you’d find a way to disparage the accomplishment. Unless you are currently in high levels of the military, actually advising the President, you don’t have a clue about what’s going on.</p>
<p>^ I’d be really happy if Bush would cure cancer. Frankly, I’d be happiest if he resigned to devote all his time to cancer research. The world would be a safer place.</p>
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<p>What exactly is the accomplishment(s) that I am disparaging? Ha. You must be kidding.</p>
<p>Watch for lots more spin to come, courtesy the commander-in-chief and those unlucky enough to serve under him.</p>
<p>I’m finished here. Your comments reflect a complete lack of desire for rational debate. It’s just one nasty, irrational comment after another, and I’m just tired of it. Some posters present alternative points of view, backed with logic and reliable sources, and I enjoy learning from them. But I’ve had enough of the nonsense on CC.</p>
<p>sjmom for many of us it is hard to give the President credit since we were so against the Iraq war from the start. I am equally disgusted with Congress because they failed to question the policy but I mostly I blame the American voters did not raise our voices to tell all the politicians if you stand against this war we will not allow the conservative pundits and the Republican party to paint you as weak on terror. I laugh at how many people I know were lock step for the war when they thought it was easy and now question the policy. This war was wrong from the start.</p>
<p>You’re both right. Joint Chiefs are NOT “military commanders on the ground.” Abizaid is. Joint Chiefs call for more troops. Abizaid and Pace do not. </p>
<p>I think whatever Bush does, in the long run, doesn’t matter. He will “cut and run”, call it somethun else of course - “our last and best attempt was not successful” - blame it on the Iraqi puppet government that he created, but not before we are another 200 billion in the hole, and lots more dead. (Just think how many Iraqi political refugees we could take in with that money?)</p>
<p>The commanders on the ground said they could control Baghdad with 2,500-3,000 more troops there, and so they got 2,500-3,000 more troops there. We’ve seen the result.</p>
<p>We will, of course, strengthen the Iraqi Army. Then they will shoot at us. More than 60% favor the killing of Americans, and now we will better equip them to do it. (Would YOU want to be “embedded” with tens of thousands of people who want to kill you, and with good reason?) </p>
<p>Like most liars, deceivers, and cheats, the Pres. listens to lots of liars, deceivers, and cheats. This time around it won’t end with a Nobel Prize for the Secretary of State. He can be trusted to:</p>
<p>"I’m finished here. Your comments reflect a complete lack of desire for rational debate. It’s just one nasty, irrational comment after another, and I’m just tired of it. "</p>
<p>But Sjmom, as far as irrational comment after comment you continue to imply that the only people against the pres and his foriegn policies are the far left. If that is so, then the far left occupies 2/3s of the population. GW has lost the middle and some of the right. He has lost them, they weren’t taken away by someone else. GW did this to himself and our country. </p>
<p>I defend your right to believe in GW, however, since I think he’s been a flawed “minister” from day one, I’m an irrational member of the far left? How?</p>
<p>His dad will go down in history as a far better president than son. Senior actually understood what would happen with the destablization of Iraq…spot on. Jr has messed up because he dismissed rational dessent as liberal far left concerns… even from his generals at the time and really from his dad. He fell into the trap of trying to prove daddy wrong and somebody else’s kids are dying for it. As a middle roader, I can’t support someone who doesn’t show the skills of leadership beyond knowing how to “Aw shucks em”.</p>
<p>It’s the centrists who are irrational. Anyone who thinks “embedding” small numbers of American troops among the Iraqis while withdrawing the rest (in Vietnam, this was called “Vietnamization”) needs his head examined. Baker (thank you “far better president GHW”) blew it in the first Gulf War, blew it on Yugoslavia, blew it on the Soviet Union (he opposed any breakup), and now, with the support of bipartisan centrists, comes out with his latest piece of tripe.</p>
<p>It’s the centrists, beginning with the Dems (who are now the majority) who will vote for an expanded war budget, more equipment, and etc., while shaking their fingers at the “war mongers”.</p>
<p>You know, Allmusic, I was thinking that same thing over the last weekend. We know we’re going to “cut 'n run” eventually, and that our departure will undoubtedly be followed by a grisly, horrific bloodbath ending with a hostile and radical regime ruling through brutal force. So why not at least provide ourselves with what little political cover we can muster at this point, and fund an election in which the Iraqis - of all them - vote for us to leave. We leave; what happens next isn’t “our fault”. Well, not entirely our fault, anyway.</p>
<p>I think I’ll take The New Yorker and its gold-standard journalistic standards over jonathanpollard.com or the National Review. I’ve been reading Sy Hersh’s articles for 25+ years, and he’s been dead on about 90% of the time. And I wasn’t citing him as authority for what was happening now, I was citing what was happening now as confirmation that he was right when he wrote, a month ago, that what is happening now would be Bush’s response to the Baker Commission.</p>
<p>I also don’t get why you are angry. You haven’t added a single argument of substance to this discussion except for the following:</p>
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<p>Other than that, you’ve put up selective quotes from news articles and impugned everyone else’s rationality.</p>
<p>When I responded before, I decided not to mock the disingenuousness of what you wrote, but I thought about it. It sounds to me like, six months ago, Bush empaneled a true blue-ribbon, experienced, bipartisan, establishment committee to seek input from experts and make recommendations. The committee and its staff spent months seeking input from experts and crafting a credible bipartisan policy. It is full of compromises, and far from perfect, and maybe even wrong, but it is as “expert”, truly bipartisan, and practical as could possibly be imagined. Really a substantial effort. </p>
<p>But Bush doesn’t like it. So he is running through a series of 20-minute photo-ops with various people so that when he rejects the Baker Commission recommendations he can treat them as just one in a chorus of competing viewpoints from which he can pick and choose. That’s not measured, that’s “fair and balanced”.</p>
<p>If Bush cured cancer, I would applaud him. I would applaud if he did anything right. There just hasn’t been much to applaud recently.</p>
<p>“If Bush cured cancer, I would applaud him. I would applaud if he did anything right.”</p>
<p>Yep. If someone would like to point to W’s triumphs, the ones that we’d be praising him for if we weren’t just out for his blood, please go right ahead.</p>
<p>I applaud his acknowledgement of the reality that deporting all the illegal immigrants already in the country is neither feasible nor desirable. It ain’t exactly curing cancer, but if you ask me, it’s one of the best things he’s done.</p>
<p>“and fund an election in which the Iraqis - of all them - vote for us to leave. We leave; what happens next isn’t “our fault”. Well, not entirely our fault, anyway.”</p>
<p>We could do such an election everywhere in the world…there wouldn’t be many U.S. troops outside of Georgia and Kentucky.</p>
<p>And the Madame Secretary Rendition Rice could have a field day!</p>
<p>I must admit that this is the first time I’ve heard the word “practical”, “substantial” and the ISG report in the same sentence. But at least the qualifier “as could be imagined” was thrown in. In my case, I imagined that it would be very little - and I got what I imagined. (Although, I must admit that I hoped for a silver bullet.) When I first read the report, the first thought that came to my mind was that it was a merely a bunch of wishful thinking - as if the ISG decided upfront that they would go into brainstorming mode in which pragmatism was not a requirement. </p>
<p>To listen to the ISG, one could easily conclude that the entire Middle East conundrum could be solved by a group of non-experts getting together for a few months and writing a paper. There’s a reason why the Middle east has been in conflict for many decades, but apparently this reason escapes the intellect of people like Sandra Day O’Connor and Vernon Jordan - as world-renowned international relations experts as they are. They write a paper peppered with “Iran should” do this and “Syria should” do that and then step back and wait for the accolades to flow in.</p>